The bicoastal elite [in the US] might be more effective in opposing Mr Trump if it weren't obsessed with the persecution of anybody who says the wrong thing. "While you self-involved fools were policing the language at the Kids' Choice Awards," raged the broadcaster Bill Maher last week, "a madman talked his way into the White House." This new puritanism must explain why some feminists make common cause with Islam. One of the Women's March organisers was Linda Sarsour, a defender of sharia law, which is misogynism incarnate. She said on Twitter of Brigitte Gabriel, a feminist critic of Islam, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a victim of female genital mutilation and of death threats for apostasy, "I wish I could take their vaginas away - they don't deserve to be women." So she's a pussy-grabber too. She has since deleted the tweet.

This passage is borrowed from Ridley's Diary in this week's Spectator, and he makes an interesting suggestion about a new 'puritanism,' but he provides no clear evidence that a puritanical mindset is the problem. What I see in this passage is the same old political correctness that has characterized the Left since the 1990s, at least. The Left perceives minority groups as oppressed, and because Islam is a minority in the West, it is considered oppressed and is therefore protected from criticism, any criticism being merely an expression of 'Islamophobia.' Meanwhile, Islamism continues to exert an influence on Islam, which is hardly a minority in the world!

The Left likes to think that it thinks globally, but Leftists have missed the big picture . . .

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About Me

I am a professor at Ewha Womans University, where I teach composition, research writing, and cultural issues, including the occasional graduate seminar on Gnosticism and Johannine theology and the occasional undergraduate course on European history.
My doctorate is in history (U.C. Berkeley), with emphasis on religion and science. My thesis is on John's gospel and Gnosticism.
I also work as one-half of a translating team with my wife, and our most significant translation is Yi Kwang-su's novel The Soil, which was funded by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.
I'm also an award-winning writer, and I recommend my novella, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer, to anyone interested.
I'm originally from the Arkansas Ozarks, but my academic career -- funded through doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships (e.g., Fulbright, Naumann, Lady Davis) -- has taken me through Texas, California, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and Israel and has landed me in Seoul, South Korea. I've also traveled to Mexico, visited much of Europe, including Moscow, and touched down briefly in a few East Asian countries.
Hence: "Gypsy Scholar."